What is Driver?

Making the time and space to write has taken many forms over the years - from my college days selling plasma to my post-college year living in a cabin with an outhouse in the woods. I’ve created this space to share essays on what it means to live a creative life because as a young writer, I was often looking for THE WAY. But I’ve become much more interested in the in-between times that involve figuring out how to create, how to make money, how to start a new project, and how to do work that is meaningful. As poet Nikky Finney, who was my professor at Berea College once wrote to me, “So much of the world needs the muscle found in true words. Please keep sending what your head and belly make as one loaf.”

Why subscribe?

I can imagine that I am not the only person who feels weary of communicating via social media. During the pandemic, I’ve yearned for physical objects like letters, printed photos, and books. I’ve felt drawn to write about what I’m reading, interviews I’ve conducted, projects I’m working on, and my obsession with photography. I have not forgotten the days when I thought selling plasma could fund my writing. And I think there is beauty in remembering the ways we have attempted to make space to be creative.

And paid subscriptions?

Creative work is inherently unstable, and I would like to make this a sustainable project, to be able to pay editors, photographers, illustrators, and writers to contribute to this space. I know pandemic times have been hard on everyone in different ways, especially financially. While most of my content will be free, some content will be for those with paid subscriptions.

“The only thing going for me that is really alive for me is my work” - Maurice Sendak

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Notes on writing, reading, photography, books & big creative projects

People

Alice Driver is a writer from the Ozark Mountains. She is writing The Life and Death of the American Worker (Astra House 2024) & Artists All Around (Princeton Architectural Press 2025). Rep Kirsty McLachlan